If dogs could speak...
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
An unspeakable sorrowBiloxi, Miss. resident Harvey Jackson, whose wife, Tonette, was missing after surging waters from hurricane Katrina split their house in half.
“I held her hand tight as I could and she told me ‘You can’t hold me’. She said, ‘Take care of the kids and the grandkids’.”
“We have nowhere to go. I’m lost, that’s all I had, that’s all I had.”
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:52 PM 1 comments
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Hot topic
California's San Joaquin Valley, along with Houston and Los Angeles have had the three worst air pollution problems in the US for several years. This month, air quality officials finally determined that cows are the region's biggest source of pollutants. They estimated that each dairy cow releases 19.3 lbs of gases per year, adding up to higher total smog compounds from the 2.5 million cows in the valley than from cars or trucks or pesticides.
The values were measured in experiments conducted by scientists from the University of California, who housed cows in special tents called bio-bubbles, and used super-sensitive gas sensors to monitor emissions from the cows while they ate and afterwards. Even in the face of all that research, the findings were still challenged by representatives from the dairy industry, who argued that the analysis was based on total BS (the scientists do concede that point) and pointed out that it is better to be in an enclosed room with a ruminating cow than with a running truck (the scientists say it depends on whether it's before or after the cow emissions).
There are days when nothing seems to go right at work, but I am sure glad I am not a bovine scientist.
Cattle or SUV. Which one is more lethal?
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:46 AM 4 comments
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Cheese and whineThis can happen only when you mix Japanese politics with French food. In early August, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi invited his predecessor Yoshiro Mori to his official residence to discuss the upcoming elections. However, after the meeting, Mori complained that he felt slighted, since for refreshments he was given only canned beer and "bone-dry cheese." About the cheese bits, he said, "I did my best to sink my teeth in these, but they were too hard for me." That was probably right up there on the list of serious offenses in Japan, next to getting bowed to but not deeply enough.
It turns out that the cheese was an expensive French variety called "Mimolette." According to this cheese site, Mimolette is firm and slightly oily with a subtle fruity aroma and a mellow nutty taste, and has a orange or light brown rind that is pitted, dry and hard. Maybe Mori didn't have enough beer and spent the whole time nibbling on the rind. Upon learning the cheese facts, he was mollified and dropped his plan to challenge Koizumi to a one-man-alive samurai sword battle. On Thursday, the pair reconciled over dinner, this time staying safe with nothing but Japanese food.
They didn't ask me (they never do!) but personally, I think they should have gone to McDonald's in the first place, where you can never get confused about food. Everything is clearly labeled, and a deluxe cheeseburger is always obviously deluxe -- no bones about it, because they use worms for meat (just kidding, don't sue me!). And their cheese is good old American cheese; it might taste a lot like Velveeta, but it is never pitted, dry or hard.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:49 AM 8 comments
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Highway robberyLast Friday the owner of a gas station in Fort Wayne. Alabama, was killed when he tried to stop a customer from driving away without paying for the gas. He apparently grabbed onto the vehicle when it sped away across the parking lot, but fell and was run over by the vehicle's rear wheel. The suspect was a male in his 20s or 30s, driving a late-model SUV/ The amount of gas taken: $52.05. I suppose that it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it's sad nevertheless to see some people willing to buy new, large vehicles, but yet refusing to pay what it takes to drive them.
On a related note, I passed by a Chevron station on my way home today, and there was a large banner, "New, low prices" stretched in front. Just like that. I looked again, and regular was $2.89 and premium was $3.19. I couldn't afford those low prices and drove down the street to an Arco station where prices were indeed lower, only $2.71 for regular. I paid $30, but the tank was only 3/4 full. Officially there was no robbery reported but as I got back into the car, I couldn't help thinking that one had just occurred.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 9:25 PM 2 comments
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Starting at the top
Climbing the career ladder has suddenly gotten a lot more difficult in Japan. This morning, ImageNet, a leading apparel online retailer just concluded a round of interviews for new job applicants. What's unusual was that the interviews were held at dawn at the top of Mt Fuji, Japan's tallest mountain, to ensure that new employees have "what it takes to scale the heights of business." Of the 20 candidates, only 11 were able to make the 12400 ft climb to compete for four job openings.
I don't understand: Why couldn't they just get Donald Trump to tell the job seekers "You're Fired!" back at the Tokyo office? Admits Yoshifumi Tsunada, head of public relations: "A lot of people have said we are strange."
"You're not hired!"
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:45 PM 1 comments
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Water attackJapan seems to have taken upon itself to show the world how to live by the Kyoto Protocol and combat global warming. In April, the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi launched a fashion trend he called "Cool Biz" to encourage government employees and businessmen to forego the customary tie, long-sleeve shirt and jacket during the summer. That would allow building temperatures to be raised to 82F without sacrificing comfort, thereby saving billions of barrels of oil in energy used for office air conditioning and megaquintillions yen (or quadrazillions dollars if you are counting, and with the skyhigh cost of oil, you'd better count).
Now environmental activists have started a new campaign, Operation Water Scattering, to ask city residents to drench concrete in urban areas in order to cool down big cities and again fight global warming. In Japan, it's not unusual to see owners of shops and households toss buckets of water in front of their places -- that's one of the main dangers of walking in small-town Japan, getting hit by water while you are dodging kamikaze elderly women on bicycles. But now citizens are requested to also scatter water on grounds near public facilities such as government offices and schools.
Now there is something my enquiring mind wants to know: When taxi drivers do their time-honored tradition of public urination, does that help or hurt global warming? I mean theoretically it could raise sidewalk temperature a wee bit. Research is a lot of hard work.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:36 AM 3 comments
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Come back!
Maybe it's the fact that housing prices have gone up so much in the last few years and everyone wants to cash out. Maybe it's my WMD killer tomato that has people scared. Or maybe it's just me, scratching myself in inappropriate places in front of the house when I thought no one was looking. But all of a sudden, all of my neighbors have moved away.
It started in late March when my neighbor to the left sold her house because she was relocating to a new place across the Bay. Then the couple in front sold when they retired to the Central Valley where things are so much cheaper than here. And finally last month the folks to the right who have always kept the worst dump in the neighborhood quite unexpectedly decided to renovate -- they installed double-paned windows and a wood floor, redid the landscaping both front and back, and put on a fresh coat of paint. Within days of completion, the For Sale sign went up and last week the house sold.
House to the left, and house to the right
I have met some of the new neighbors and they seemed nice enough, but now I am worried. I feel like the last holdout in a deserted town. Is the housing bubble going to burst soon? Is the next Big Earthquake coming? Or is a toxic waste stream going to erupt from the underground?
And the most important question: Would you like to buy my house? It has new windows and a new gazebo. Even the neighbors are brand new.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:12 AM 5 comments
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
100 pork buns, 83 steamed dumplings and 53 hot dogs
What's the difference between the above foods? Probably nothing. You could argue that pork buns and dumplings are the Chinese equivalent of the American hot dog. Horrible things go into them all.
The real answer is that they were what Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi ate to win his eating contests. Back on Independence Day this year, he won Nathan's Famous hot dog eating extravaganza in New York for the fifth straight time. Then this past weekend, he entered another competition in Hong Kong.
This was a two-day affair. On Saturday, he downed 83 vegetarian dumplings in eight minutes, easily beating 30 challengers. He said that he hadn't even reached his full capacity because he wanted to "reserve room" for the final round. The next day, he went up against the six next best competitors in a contest that featured roast pork buns which were supposedly harder to swallow. That apparently didn't faze him, as he again defeated his opponents by effortlessly devouring 100 pork buns in 12 minutes.
What's even more amazing, was that he ate them all using chopsticks. Many people would still be trying to stab their first dumpling after 10 minutes.
"The Tsunami" flexing his muscle. The competition is choking. Click to enlarge
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:32 PM 3 comments
Sunday, August 14, 2005
The funnies
I gave in yesterday and pre-ordered the Complete Collection of Calvin and Hobbes. It took some hard thinking for oh, at least ten seconds. Now it's just a matter of waiting 51 days 16 hours 28 minutes until it's shipped. The publisher Andrews McMeel has even set up a countdown clock on their web site for friends of Calvin.
I hope that this idea of doing complete collections doesn't keep spreading to all comics. It started with The Far Side almost two years ago. The concept of putting the entire body of cartoons into one set was unheard of then, and Gary Larson was probably the only author who could have pulled it off. But it was done authoritatively, and it became enormously popular for a long time. I bought my set through Amazon and spent many weekends admiring the beautiful artwork and warped sense of humor. Now comes Calvin and Hobbes, and I am sure that it will be just as well crafted and fun to read.
But the trend is not likely to stop here. We've also had the Complete Peanuts box sets, the first of which came out in spring 2004 and has since sold over 100,000 copies. Now the same publisher, Seattle-based Fantagraphics has announced that in September, they will publish the first book in a 25-volume series, "Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace." The series will run 11 years and reprint every "Dennis the Menace" newspaper strip -- nearly 11,000 strips spanning more than 44 years.
Oh Billy, you think we should run away and join another family?
All of that is making me nervous. I sprung for The Far Side, I am happily buying Calvin and Hobbes, but I am still on the fence for Peanuts, and Dennis is definitely a long shot. I hope they don't tempt me with Family Circus. I don't think I can handle the pressure.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 7:32 AM 1 comments
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Decision decisionPart of my log-in routine at home is to check email for my daily dose of Calvin and Hobbes from uComics (a cartoon-a-day email), and check the Amazon web page. Amazon has this feature called Gold Box in which they offer ten items each day at an extra discount, and you have 60 minutes to buy them or lose the discount. On most days, their offerings are not all that interesting, usually some jewelry or barbeque knickknacks, but lately it seems that they customize their recommendations based on your purchasing or browsing history. I usually get hooked about every other week and end up ordering something I didn't know I needed.
Today, one of the Gold Box items is The Complete Collection of Calvin and Hobbes. This is a compilation of all Calvin cartoons that were ever published, a massive hernia-inducing (almost 50 lbs!) set that includes three hardcover volumes in a nice, sturdy slipcase. It has a list price of $150, and the best pre-order price I've seen is around $95. My Gold Box discount today is an extra 10%; coupled with the A9 search bonus (1.6%), it comes out to less than $84 with free shipping. This was an indulgence that I have been thinking about already, and now with this special price, it's awfully hard to resist.
I have, let's see, 23 minutes left to decide. Should I pee on Calvin?
- posted by Woofwoof @ 7:12 AM 4 comments
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Yellow, green and purpleTaiwanese researchers have found a way to produce colored rice to keep kids from shifting their tastes to the Big Mac. So far they have come up with four colors: yellow from treating plain rice with turmeric, an ingredient in curry; green from bitter gourd, pink from tomato and purple from a mix of vegetables.
The new rice is expected to cost about twice as much as regular rice and be available commercially next year. The researchers hope to one day achieve fourteen different colors so people have more varieties to choose from -- a color a day for two weeks. I hope they include flavors of pork fried rice and fried rice with chicken and prawns, grown straight out of the ground. I'll be happy to pay triple.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 11:28 PM 1 comments
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Don't follow my noseI got home late Friday might and there was a terrible, putrid odor coming from behind the dishwasher. I sniffed around the space between the dishwasher and the stove and sure enough, the smell was coming from there. I thought, oh great, Saddam Hussein stashed his rat poison in my kitchen and now I have to deal with a dead rodent.
I remembered the engineering principle "Do No Harm," cited so often by NASA recently whenever they discussed the space shuttle Discovery (actually I don't know any self-respecting engineer who thinks that way; usually it's "Tweak til it breaks" but that's another story). But then I thought about having to move the dishwasher and tangle with the mess of hoses behind it, and decided that NASA was probably right. Let the rat dry out. Eventually the smell will disappear.
I woke up yesterday and the stink was now ten times deadlier, and was all over the house. I pulled the washer out -- fortunately it was on wheels and surprisingly light. I found all sorts of evil and ugliness behind it, one dime and two nickels, and a large doggie biscuit probably five years old. But no WMD, no Jimmy Hoffa, no Elvis, and most importantly, no rat. I wiped the spot clean, checked behind the stove but still no rat. And the smell was just as strong as ever. This was puzzling but not worthy of more time. I sprayed the area with enough Lysol to make it smell like a fresh carwash and left.
To make a long story short, I discovered this morning where the smell was from. I was making myself a bowl of cereal (while pinching my nose because the Lysol had dissipated but not the rat odor). There was a large tomato on the counter that I bought a week ago. I picked it up to move it out of the way and it suddenly burst into a nasty stream of stinky tomato juice all over me, like a balloon, all rotten inside but skin still intact. The rest of it went splat in my hand. And it smelled gross as a dead rat, only a thousand times more concentrated. I stayed in the shower for a good fifteen minutes and used as much soap and shampoo as I could, but the feel of rotten tomato is still overwhelming. I think I'll go bathe in Lysol now. And if that doesn't work, I'll stab myself in the nose.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:57 AM 5 comments
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Monday, August 01, 2005
I hope they don't get a headache
Like the Japanese tourist who packs a suitcase full of noodles and snacks for his trip abroad for fear he wouldn't like foreign food, astronaut Soichi Noguchi also brought some instant ramen with him aboard the space shuttle Discovery. The ramen was developed by Nissin Food Products, the same company whose founder Momofuku Ando invented instant noodles back in 1958. It comes in vacuum-packed pouches and four flavors: soy sauce, miso, pork and curry.
There are a few differences between the shuttle ramen, dubbed "Space Ram" and the earth version. To make the food easier to consume in zero gravity, the noodles are formed into bite-size balls and the soup is made thicker than usual. They also tweaked the ingredients slightly so that the noodles cook properly at 70C which is the boiling point of water on the shuttle. Finally they made the ramen even spicier than on Earth, as foods generally tend to taste more bland in space -- probably by just adding a lot more MSG.
Air travel sure isn't what it used to be. You fly first-class hundreds of thousands of miles, and all you get for dinner is a 50-cent Cup Noodles.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:48 PM 4 comments
